Chapter 7: Releasing Pressure

Things calmed down over the next couple of days to a new normal. Adrian and Amy spent most of the remaining hours of Elias’s required down time in doing what they can to triage Elias’s tasks. They spoke with Hiroshi to figure out if there were any trusted members of the guild that could be asked to help in handing out materials and keeping things on the straight and narrow. The guild would be a source of materials, pilots, and morale, it was important to keep them functioning at a high level. They had an informal agreement with other guilds in their general area that if Reforged didn’t expand into their direction, then things would be relatively cool between them. They still had isolated members of some guilds and some former Blades try to spend a weekend night trying to wreck things in a fit of pique, but they were usually run off before they could do too much damage to the Reforged setup.

There was also a proposal from SureTouch, a maker of premium “Gamer” equipment, with an offer to make officially licensed Reforged “Gorilla Warfare” computer mice and mouse pads. Marcus had a brief discussion, and an agreement was quickly signed. SureTouch would make two varieties of the Gorilla Warfare line, one with the Reforged logo on it, that came with an official line of Reforged stickers, and another unbranded that focused on the Gorilla on the mouse pad. Kevin loved the sticker for the Reforged one that says “Excuse me while I go bananas” A couple others needed more investigation, and Marcus generally handled those. There was all kinds of offers and requests asking for Reforged’s assistance in various conflicts happening around the Universe at War’s map.

Elias chuckled when he was told about them. “Old me would have thought that was the coolest thing ever. Right now, I’d rather keep Reforged out of everyone else’s business while we negotiate these growing pains. Not to mention the fact that it’s a lot harder to perform miracles when you can’t read the opposing Guild Leader’s mind like it was one of those kid’s books, like Dr Seuss.”

Kevin quipped “Let’s not go there. Even Dr. Seuss himself would have trouble with finding things that rhymes with WarMaster. Hmm ... wait. Disaster, Plaster, caster, bastard ... well that one’s a reach and I can’t imagine Dr Seuss using THAT word.”

Adrian went cross-eyed for a moment, trying to follow Kevin’s logic. It went strange places, but he was used to it. But imagining Dr Seuss writing about a WarMachine instead of something like Horton or Green Eggs and Ham, and using the word bastard? That was something that had never been said before, and nothing could have ever suggested that today would be the day that happened. He tried gamely to get the conversation back on-topic.

“I think we’re getting horribly off-topic. We left our original discussion about nine miles back, and it’s wondering where we went.”

Kevin nodded. “We should send it bus fare. Doctor Seuss would definitely rhyme laser with taser. We should continue this line of thought...”

He caught Elias rubbing his forehead, obviously wishing he was back in his room sleeping.

“Later. Much Later. When Elias doesn’t look like he’s wondering when he can get me fitted for one of those wonderful jackets with all the straps and no holes for arms.”

Elias grinned. He actually was feeling much better after his time off. And he couldn’t resist teasing Kevin back, which was a further sign his sense of humor was back. “So, we should reschedule it to the Thirty-Second of Never?”

Kevin considered it. “Yeah, that works.”

Then he looked toward the camera crew.

“You guys got that, right? I want a copy. I’ve just had an idea for Reforged books written entirely in that style, and I refuse to risk forgetting it.”

Adrian stared at him.

“Please risk forgetting it.”

“Too late. It’s documented now.”

The camera guys were actually chuckling now. They had expected hostility. No one really LIKED having them around for several hours a day, and Reforged wasn’t particularly thrilled that almost everything they did might end up as background material for someone writing a show. But nobody went out of their way to make the crew feel unwelcome. They generally stayed out of the camera crew’s way and didn’t throw unnecessary barriers in front of them doing their jobs.

It helped that just about everyone treated them like people doing a job, rather than walking, talking annoyances.

During one of their breakdown sessions near the end of a day, one member of the the crew remarked that “You know, my last gig was one of those reality ‘flip houses now’ shows everybody apparently loves. Never understood why, but somebody must be watching or they wouldn’t keep making them.”

He shook his head.

“The two faces of that show? Total friggin’ divas. You’d think they were Hollywood royalty, not house flippers who were seven figures in debt before the show started. Certain angles, certain shots, ‘don’t stand there,’ ‘get out of my way.’ Half the time I swear they’d deliberately walk through a shot just because they could.”

He glanced toward the Pit.

“These people? Crazy. But the fun kind of crazy. The kind you’d have a beer with. Nerds, sure. They play a computer game for a living. But hell, if somebody’ll pay them to do it, good for them.”

The rest of the crew agreed.

One of them joked, “I took a picture of the controls these guys use to run their WarMACs and sent it to my old man. He said that in his day, a joystick moved four directions and had one button.”

He shook his head.

“Then he asked if this was how the government trained the next generation of drone pilots.”

A pause.

“Honestly? I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Three days later, they lost their office space as Marcus had hired a temporary office manager with an option to make the job permanent. However, even that turned out to be a minor thing, as Marcus brought some temporary office walls to wall off a section of the Pit’s tables for their use.

The office manager was a plump, somewhat older semi-retired grandmother named Emily. She had no idea of what the kids in the office did (anyone the age of her kids would be referred to as kids, she said) but she managed to get things setup after a few days of trying to understand what everyone needed. They quickly broke down categories of materials that came into Reforged’s email box. In-game things were passed on to Elias, with Amy and Adrian as backups, to be passed on down to the guild or handled at that level as needed. Sponsorships and Business material went to Marcus at first look. Anything to do with the office itself, such as dealing with the newly hired cleaning crew, paying for food supplies was her responsibility. She would be in the office for only three or four hours a day, and only on weekdays, but she managed to get things done. She even managed to get Kevin a cheap business class upgrade for his flight to attend the Kelto workship for semi-professional teams. Elias hadn’t even thought to splurge on his ticket for the same flight, but he hadn’t felt like asking Emily for the same privilege. As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Kevin noticed that Elias was flying economy class, and asked Emily to upgrade it for him as well.

Elias tried to protest that he was just trying to get there, but Kevin immediately showed why he was going along.

“Elias, no one enjoys being crammed into one of those ever shrinking spaces they call an economy class seat. You need to actually be comfortable going there and back, because you have a lot to do, even with me along with you. We can’t waste several hours for every muscle of your body to stop complaining about being packed into a slightly unnatural position. It’s a short flight, yes. But even a couple hours can feel like forever when a four year old is kicking your seat.”